The ACCY 111 Experience - Victoria University of Wellington
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Transcript The ACCY 111 Experience - Victoria University of Wellington
The ACCY 111 Experience
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Dr Philip Colquhoun
Professor Kevin Holmes
Professor Kevin Simpkins
School of Accounting and Commercial Law
A presentation to AKO Victoria 2011
Research funded by VUW teaching and learning grant
2010
The problem
Pass rate consistently remained relatively low
over number of years
Despite number of recent interventions
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More tutorials
Specialised tutorials
Introduction of on-line tests
Variety of teaching staff
Variety of assessment schemes
Looking to make changes to increase pass rate –
but need to be informed by what is the problem.
The problem – pass rate 1996 to 2010
People – students in ACCY 111
◦ Enrolled 18,799
◦ Failed 33.2% (6,249)
In dollars (we are accountants!)
◦ Approximately $33 million in revenue from
ACCY 111
◦ Approximately $11 million relate to students
that failed ACCY 111
(based on a 15 point course at 2011 rates)
The problem - Societal waste
Funding
◦ Student funded
◦ Student debt
◦ Government expenditure
Personal cost
◦ Time
◦ Self esteem
The project
Two parts
Statistical study of 2009 ACCY 111 cohort
◦ What are the factors that impact on student
performance.
Structured interviews of ACCY 111 students in
second trimester 2010.
◦ Students’ perceptions and self reporting of behaviour
related to ACCY 111.
…. a selection of the insights …
From statistical study
Almost ¾ of the variability in pass grades
can be explained by
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NCEA results
Mid-trimester test
Tutorial attendance
Use of online test and revision package
From statistical study
NCEA – level three
NECA performance is reflected in better performance in ACCY 111
if NECA performance includes:
◦ 21 excellence credits, or
◦ 34 merit credits, or
◦ 28 achieved credits in accounting
But… below these levels … those that had some NCEA credits
performed worse than those without any credits.
Implications
◦ Have we got the university (or degree) entry level right?
◦ Are there skills that some students fail to obtain via school and we don’t
seek to remedy this – rather continue to support performance below
ability and/or failure.
◦ NCEA – unit specification and “achieve is enough” versus less specified
requirements at ACCY 111.
From statistical study
Internal course work
All important
◦ Tutorial attendance
◦ Online work
especially shorter and more frequent use was better
Implications
◦ Opportunities provided, but not taken up by
students
Something wrong with how we provide them or
Students are lazy/busy
From statistical study
Choice of major
Accounting and economic majors do better
Implications
◦ Accounting and economic students are brighter
therefore this is self-evident, or
◦ ACCY 111 has a strong focus on economic
worldview/thinking patterns and therefore bias to
those inclined to that worldview.
From statistical study
Ethnicity
Compared to NZ European/Pakeha all other
groups performed worse,
African, Chinese and Other Pacific Peoples groups
being statistically significant
Implications
◦ Preparation and/or institutional factors.
◦ Accepting that business and accounting are cultural
artifacts are we assuming too much in our teaching.
From interviews
Reported time spent per week
◦ Expected at start of course = 6 hours
◦ Reported = 7.7 hours
◦ Reported for other courses = 7.9 hours
Expected grade
◦ At start B+
◦ At end B
From interviews
Usefulness
◦ 4 out of 5
Very useful
(1-5 Likert scale)
Perceived difficulty
◦ Week 1 = 2.8
◦ Week 6 = 3.6
Got more difficult
(Liket scale 1 easy – 5 difficult)
From interviews
Summary
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They think it very useful,
Perceived difficultly increases during course,
Grade expectation drops
And they work longer on other courses
Implications
◦ Being difficult or useful may not help with
student motivation!
Where we are heading
New course proposed for 2012
2011
◦ On-line assessment
More and worth significant part of final grade
◦ Tutorials
More student discussion – less content focus(?)
Tutor selection/management
Still unclear
What can we do about students coming in with poor
NCEA results?
◦ What is the(ir) problem?
How much understanding of commerce do students
entering the BCA degree come with ?
How to increase participation in course components
(e.g. online and tutorials)?
◦ At moment providing more but perhaps only used by
those that don’t need it.
◦ Measuring cost/ benefits of further interventions.
How university wide are these issues?